In the prior art practices, it is customary to accomplish the creation of special printing effects, such as vignetting, during the printing of a photograph. Consequently, the use of such techniques has previously been confined to the darkroom and control of vignetting and similar processes and their accomplishment in the field during the taking of a photograph has not been possible.
Furthermore, many amateur photographers do not have available to them the darkroom equipment which permits them to embellish the photographs they have taken in various artistic ways during the printing of the negatives of such photographs.
Consequently, the use of artistic techniques such as vignetting, silhouetting, halo effects and others has been largely restricted to professionals and the amateur photographer has not been able to resort to these techniques which, on occasion, materially enhance the beauty and impact of a photographic print.
Other darkroom techniques available to the professional or well-equipped amateur include the utilization of specially shaped vignettes including crosses, stars, diamonds and various other symbolic shapes to frame a photographic image as it is printed from the photographic negative. Because of the equipment entailed and the fact that most amateurs do not have their own darkroom, they have been precluded from the achievement of such special effects.